Top 6 Customer Acquisition Tactics for Subscription Boxes and Retailers

The subscription box industry has grown from a few brands to countless choices as traditional retailers cash in on the craze. With boundless options, customer acquisition is key for subscription brands to succeed. From Hitwise data, here are the top six tactics for subscription box to acquire and grow customers:

1. Line up Your Acquisition Channels

Affiliates is the fastest growing traffic source for subscription boxes, and key to customer acquisition. This reliance was almost double that of the Retail 500 (an aggregation of top 500 retail domains). Email is also a key source of engagement for subscription boxes and continues to grow. Whilst, subscription boxes relied more on Social Media than the Hitwise Retail 500, but this has largely declined over the year.

2. Select the Right Affiliates to Find New Customers

PINCHme, a new free samples box service, was the top affiliate traffic driver in April, growing astronomically compared to last year. The biggest recipient of that traffic was Graze, which received 10% of their clicks from PINCHme. Traffic data suggests this relationship began two months prior, and with great success. Graze saw a 115% YoY increase in online visits over April 2018.

3. Think Partnerships to Open Up Your Brand

There is a natural relationship between brands, retailers and subscription box providers, which opens each player to a new set of customers. Many retailers already have strong overlap with the subscription box industry, and partnering can strengthen brand affinity. For instance, Madewell could provide a bonus knit scarf in a Stitch Fix box, with a label encouraging the consumer to check out the rest of their winter clothing line.

4. Use Search to Tailor Content and PPC

Approximately 1 in every 50 subscription box searches include the terms “best” (1.04% of searches) or “review” (0.95%). These keywords provide valuable clues on what questions consumers are asking in their research phase, and can help subscription boxes tailor their keyword bidding and content strategy.

Gwynnie Bee, for example, would benefit for bidding on the “best plus size clothing” keyword — and seek strong relationships with bloggers and lifestyle sites who receive traffic from this search term.

5. Take Search Seasonality into Account

Consumers seek a variety products to meet their changing needs throughout the year, which results in a lot of seasonality in subscription demand. For example, the term “best meal delivery boxes” is searched more heavily during the Back to School season. During the winter holidays, “best beauty boxes” sees a surge.

6. Think Mobile, Because Your Customers Are

Finally, 65% of traffic on subscription boxes come from smartphones and tablets. This mobile share is considerably higher than both the average and the retail sector. Therefore, ensure all of your digital channels and tactics are optimized on mobile.

This report was excerpted from our Subscription Box Report, which details the subscriber audience and tactics for brands to acquire new customers. ___Source: Hitwise Data Q1 2018 and April 2018, top traffic sources to custom industry of subscription box brands.